Riding in Cars with Agents
by Oparu
Summary: Five times Lola was a fairly central figure in May and Coulson's not-relationship.


_Notes: __written for Philinda Secret Summer, for goizzy123456789. Hope you like it!_

She doesn't really remember the first time she rode in Lola with Phil. It was late, she'd been down in that part of S.H.I.E.L.D. where no one went. She'd worked past midnight and he drove her home. He could have had any car when he got his promotion, and he chose that one. It was impractical, because a convertible is hell in the winter, but when she fell asleep on the soft leather seat, she agreed that the engine had a purr to it. She slept little, he knew that, so he circled her apartment until she was entirely out. She woke up inside in her own bed. He'd set her alarm, turned down the blankets and set aside her shoes. Before she fell asleep again, Melinda almost wished he'd stayed.

* * *

Phil swears he's going to let her eat in Lola only once. She has to be careful, napkin spread on her lap and two others in reserve. Fitz made the sandwich and his hold together better than Ward's. Ward puts in too much. She would have waited, ate on the side of the road, but they're in a hurry. She's never eaten a sandwich with the care she'd put into wielding a razor sharp sword. He takes every corner with care, and drives under the speed limit. Not that he doesn't trust her, but because the leather's still vintage.

The second time, she promises to wait, but she's been in the field for thirty hours, can't remember the last time she ate, and he pulls over the car.

"You're woozy."

"It's been a long day and a half, I'm tired."

"May, you can barely keep your eyes open."

"Then wake me up at the Bus."

His door clicks and he circles the car. The trunk opens, then closes. She's not sure if she's more tired or hungry, and the combination of both is enough that her mind floats, half-conscious.

"Drink."

"I'm fine."

"May-" he gently runs his hand across her face. "You can sleep in Lola, but I'd rather you didn't pass out in her. Are you hurt?"

"I'd never ruin your upholstery by getting into Lola injured."

He smiles and helps her drink. Electrolyte replacements always taste so terrible, somehow nothing like what they're meant to. "You should have been more careful out there."

"Fitz and Ward blew the checkpoint. I had to improvise." He makes her drink again and she winces.

"It says it's raspberry."

She shakes her head, but her vision's stopped going grey on the edges. "That's not raspberry."

He tears a piece off of granola bar and holds it up to her lips. "This might be better."

Melinda stands up, but he catches her and sits her back down.

"Sit."

"Drinking in Lola is different than eating in her."

"She won't mind this time."

Melinda smiles and takes the piece of granola bar. Chewing is more work than it should be, but she swallows. It's so sweet that it tingles down her throat.

Phil tears off another piece and holds it up to her mouth. "When you've eaten the whole thing, you can sleep."

"I could sleep now."

"I know, but Lola's worried about you."

"Is she now?"

He feeds her another piece of granola bar and smiling takes less effort. "She likes you."

* * *

"It's not really a stakeout in the most obvious car in the lot," she says. Phil sips his coffee. The rules have relaxed as he has. Maybe death has changed him more than she wants to admit.

"I doubt a bunch of teenagers pay attention to what other cars are in the lot when they make out."

Melinda sits back. Lola's leather seat is warm and far too comfortable for her to stay awake all night. She rubs her eyes and refills her coffee from the thermos.

"So you wanna try it?" Phil asks.

"Try what?"

"Make out. It might help us blend in."

She nearly spits her coffee across Lola's pristine dashboard. "In a red 1962 convertible? Please."

Phil shrugs. "It was a thought."

* * *

"Is she okay?"

Melinda climbs out of the driver's side. Simmons pours herself out of the passenger's door, and drops to her knees on the ground.

"My seat belt has given me contusions," she says, patting her shoulder.

"It was better than you falling out of the car," Melinda reminds her.

"I'm never letting you borrow her again if that's how you treat her."

"Lola's fine," Simmons insists. "She was more careful with her than she was with me."

Phil circles the car twice, just to make sure there aren't any scratches.

* * *

Blood's impossible to wash out of leather. She scrapes it off, then tries chemical cleanser but that just makes the stain spread, brown and thick. Sighing, Melinda grabs her knife and cuts. He'll never forgive her, but she needs this fixed. She tears down the seam, ripping the leather open. She tosses it out of the car and sits on the passenger seat, staring at the half-dismantled driver's seat. The windshield needs to be fixed too, but she doesn't have the tools to take that off.

The leather on the floor of the cargo bay stinks of metal and the sharp tang of cleanser. She's been washing her hands for days but they still smell like blood when she closes her eyes. Her brain remembers the moment the bullets sprayed through the windshield, how he held the wheel even though he was bleeding from three holes in his chest. She held him to the seat while he pointed out that ironically, he was going to be the person to damage his car.

She'd wanted to tease him, but his lips were so pale.

Trip found them. Phil is still in medical, sleeping off his anaesthesia. Everything was fine, but Lola's seat is ruined. She thinks about leaving the car but shuts the door instead. It's silent inside, far from the sounds of everyone else going about their day on the Bus. Phil's going to be fine, everyone's so relieved.

Melinda can't shut her eyes without seeing his blood on her hands. She hasn't cried in years, but somehow it seems right that Lola's the one to see when she finally does.

* * *

"Come on, May," he says, reaching for her hand.

"You gave everyone the day off. Trip took Simmons, Skye and Fitz to watch rounders."

"Baseball," he corrects her. "You didn't go."

"I have work to do."

"I'm your boss and it's your day off, so no, you don't."

She sighs and looks up the pile of paperwork she's been working on for him. "This work is for my boss."

"Then blow it off." He gives her that little boy smile she can't resist. "The sun's out. You, me, Lola and a hundred miles of road along the beach."

"The road doesn't go along the beach."

Phil's smile grows. "Then we won't take the road. Come on, we can get ice cream."

"Ice cream?"

"Yeah, you love ice cream."

"Ice cream in Lola? Ice cream drips. It's sticky-"

He offers her his hand again. "Maybe Lola's gotten less picky. Her leather's not vintage anymore."

Melinda glares at him, almost indignant. "I had one of the best car restorers in the business fix the driver's seat. She swore you wouldn't be able to tell."

"I got shot sitting there," he reminds her. "I don't remember much, other than you, but I'm pretty sure I bled all over the seat."

His wounds are just scars now, but they went deep. She can still feel heat of his blood on her fingers.

"You remember me?"

"Yeah. You yelled at me and wouldn't let me sleep." He walks her to Lola's passenger side and opens the door for her. "I'm kind of offended because I've let you sleep in Lola several times."

"Not on the driver's side."

"Oh, right, sorry." He climbs in next to her and starts Lola to back her out. "Next time, you can drive."

It's a cheap joke considering she had to fly Lola twenty kilometres with him bleeding out. He knows that, so she rewards him with a glare.

They drive in silence to the ice cream place just at the fork in the road where to follow the beach they'll have to fly. Melinda would almost rather fly anyway and she's forgotten all about his promise of ice cream in Lola when he stops.

"What would you like?"

"You're really letting me have ice cream in Lola?"

"I'm really letting you have ice cream in Lola. This once, and I'll probably never let you again."

"Chocolate peanut butter."

"So you pick the messiest, stickiest flavour?"

"I could have picked the blue one."

Phil exaggerates a sigh. "As you wish."

Melinda leans back and lets the sun warm her face. It is a beautiful day. They're in a lovely part of Texas and nothing terrible is hanging over their heads.

He returns with a large, haphazardly balanced ice cream cone and at least twenty napkins. His own ice cream is in a dish, and it's going to melt, but he must have a plan for that. They buckle up and he flies them down the shore just far enough so the road is lost behind them and all they have is the sea and the sand. It's truly beautiful.

Lola lands just back from the water and Melinda licks her ice cream while Phil eats his daintily with a spoon. She does end up needing several of the napkins because it's hot and he ordered several more scoops than she would have. She keeps most of it off of Lola though she has a suspicious feeling that it's all over her face because Phil keeps staring at her.

"Did you want to try it?"

She holds her ice cream out towards him. He reaches for it and kisses her instead. Surprised, Melinda nearly drops her ice cream and he grabs it.

"Oops. Lola nearly got a taste."

Melinda's still trying to deal with the fact that he kissed her. Her ice cream being all over his hand and nearly on Lola doesn't even compare.

"Is that what you were doing? Tasting?"

"It's good chocolate." He licks his lips. The moments old memory of them touching hers is already seared into her thoughts.

Melinda leans over, taking her ice cream from his hand and tossing it out onto the sand. She wipes his fingers with a napkin, then changes to his face. His eyes study her, waiting, and its the combination of patience and wanting that sends her over the edge. Kissing him back is the greatest thing she's ever done, and somehow it's fitting that Lola is a witness to that too.


End file.
